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Kim Song, the newly appointed head of North Korea’s Permanent Mission to the UN
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Kim Song to fill position that’s been vacant for nearly 2 months
Kim Song, newly appointed head of North Korea’s Permanent Mission to the UN, will soon be heading to New York to assume his duties, reports say. Considering that Kim was recently issued a visa by the US government, he will likely begin his work before the UN General Assembly kicks off on Sept. 18, a diplomatic source said. Kim will be filling a position that has been vacant for nearly two months since his predecessor, Ja Song-nam, returned to North Korea on July 26, after more than four years on the job. Last month, Japanese wire service Kyodo Sinmun reported that North Korea had applied for Kim Song’s visa from the US embassy in China back in May but that the visa hadn’t been issued. This had prompted some analysts to speculate that the US was deliberately delaying the visa process because of the stalemate in its ongoing nuclearization talks with North Korea, while others had said that it’s typical for the process to take a while. After graduating from the Pyongyang University of International Relations, Kim entered North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, where he reportedly served in the non-aligned country bureau and the international organization bureau before becoming chief of the international legal affairs bureau. Between 2013 and 2014, he served as a counselor at North Korea’s delegation to the UN. When the UN adopted a human rights resolution calling for the closure of North Korea’s concentration camps for political prisoners in Nov. 2013, Kim retorted that the UN was “aiming for regime change in North Korea under the guise of human rights.” The fact that Kim is returning as ambassador after just four years suggests that his promotions have been swift, the diplomatic source said. By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
